Certainly, in the first place, the spread of education. Every man
has now a hundred means of rational occupation and amusement which
were closed to his grandfather; and among the deadliest enemies of
drunkenness, we may class the printing-press, the railroad, and
the importation of foreign art and foreign science, which we owe
to the late forty years' peace. We can find plenty of amusement
now, beside the old one of sitting round the table and talking
over wine. Why should not the poor man share in our gain? But
over and above, there are causes simply physical. Our houses are
better ventilated. The stifling old four-post bed has given place
to the airy curtainless one; and what is more than all--we wash.
That morning cold bath which foreigners consider as Young
England's strangest superstition, has done as much, believe me, to
abolish drunkenness, as any other cause whatsoever. With a clean
skin in healthy action, and nerves and muscles braced by a sudden
shock, men do not crave for artificial stimulants. I have found
that, coeteris paribus, a man's sobriety is in direct proportion
to his cleanliness. I believe it would be so in all classes had
they the means.

And they ought to have the means. Whatever other rights a man
has, or ought to have, this at least he has, if society demands of
him that he should earn his own livelihood, and not be a torment
and a burden to his neighbours. He has a right to water, to air,
to light. In demanding that, he demands no more than nature has
given to the wild beast of the forest. He is better than they.
Treat him, then, as well as God has treated them. If we require
of him to be a man, we must at least put him on a level with the
brutes.